The Making of Bombay Duck

Dried Bombay Duck is an acquired taste, but the fresh version should find favor with anyone who likes fish, says Rajyasree Sen.

The first thing that might strike you as you enter Mumbai is the wafting smell of dried fish, which even for a fish devotee like me is horribly off-putting. But hidden in the awful smell is quite a delicacy. Loved not just by us Indians, but also by the British who christened it, this is the “bummalo” or Bombay Duck. But this isn’t a duck, it’s a fish.

Bombay Duck is the English name for what is called Bombil in Maharashtra and which was bastardised and called Bummalo by the British and the English-speaking denizens of India. You also get the fish in West Bengal, where it’s called Loyte, but it isn’t as popular as it is in Maharashtra. It may be hideous looking, but the lizard fish tastes sublime, with very soft flesh and one central bone. The fish is salted and dried in the sun, which adds to the perfumed air of Mumbai. The taste of the dried fish is without question an acquired one. And the smell is the reason for its brilliant name.

Legend goes that the fish was named after the Bombay “Dak” or “mail gari,” the cargo trains that used to transport the dried stinky fish from what was known as Bombay, before the city, like the fish, was renamed. Another story states that the pungent smell of the dried version of the fish used to remind the British of the damp wooden floors of the Bombay Dak trains. This is why they bestowed the name on the fish, which later became known as Bombay Duck.

Sebastian D’Souza/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

A fisherwoman dried Bombay Ducks in Mumbai, Nov. 8, 2004.

Not that the fermented smell was a deterrent for our colonial friends. The British used dried Bombay Duck as an accompaniment to dal and curries, and they imported it from India until 1997. But then the European Union decided to play spoilsport and banned Bombay Duck because its drying technique didn’t match the EU’s hygiene standards. That isn’t surprising if you see the fish being sunned on clotheslines on the dusty, dirty beaches of Mumbai. Undeterred, a kind British businessman, David Delaney from Hereford, fought for four years to get the ban removed, and succeeded.

Dried Bombay Duck is an acquired taste, but the fresh version should find favor with anyone who likes fish. The dish was one of my best discoveries in Mumbai. While I had eaten it as a curry in Kolkata, the first time I sank my teeth into the Maharashtrian version was in a small restaurant called Sindhudurg, right next to Shiv Sena Bhawan. The fish had been butterflied, the central bone removed, and it was marinated in spices and crisply fried in rice flour. Nothing prepared me for the soft flesh beneath the crisply-fried exterior. It was fishy heaven.

If you get your hands on the dried version, you can simply toast it in the oven, crumble it up and sprinkle it over your dal and rice. But if you are a little kitchen-friendly, here’s my favorite recipe for that Bombay Duck I had years ago in Sindhudurg.

Take the fish, wrap in paper tissues and place a weight over it and keep for approximately 20 minutes. This will remove any excess water from the fish.

Marinate the fish with all ingredients, except the rice flour/semolina.

Cover the fish with the rice flour/semolina.

Deep fry the fish until the batter becomes golden brown. This should take three to four minutes.

Remove and place on paper towels to extract any extra oil.

Eat on its own or with dal and rice.

If you’re not a cook, you can always go to Swagath restaurant in New Delhi or Sindhudurg, Gajalee or Mahesh Lunch Home in Mumbai, and just let someone else cook up Bombay Duck Fry for you.

Rajyasree used to run the Bengali and Anglo-Indian restaurant, Brown Sahib, and has a catering outfit called Food for Thought . You can follow her on Twitter @Rajyasree. Follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.

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